


What About Today

by blithesea, womenseemwicked



Series: Drivin' After Midnight [7]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anger Management, Angst, Collaboration, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Music, POV Billy Hargrove, POV Steve Harrington, Roleplay Logs, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 10:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13855593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithesea/pseuds/blithesea, https://archiveofourown.org/users/womenseemwicked/pseuds/womenseemwicked
Summary: Steve smacks the alarm clock until it shuts the hell up and drifts off again because the bed is so warm and nice, and he fell asleep like a stone last night after all the… all the fucking around… with Billy… Suddenly Steve sits up sharply, glances at the clock with a horrified gasp. 10:26 am. Fuck!





	What About Today

**Author's Note:**

> Billy POV by ficsandfuckery ([women-seem-wicked](http://women-seem-wicked.tumblr.com/) on tumblr), Steve POV by blithesea ([bites-heal](https://bites-heal.tumblr.com/) on tumblr).  
> \--  
> Title pulled from a song by Barbra Streisand.

Billy drives home quickly, but he’s all keyed up and distracted so he passes his house and just goes for a drive. It’s been a while since he’s seen Steve on one of these, and for a while he thought it was because of what they did last time, or on worse nights he thought it was because of what Billy did to him, beating him down and destroying what little trust they’d managed to build. 

And perhaps those are still reasons, but Billy knows now that the nightmares are primarily to blame. Or rather, the absence of them. He knows he should be glad Steve’s sleeping better, but a part of him wishes he wasn’t. It’s selfish, but that’s why he’ll never say it out loud. He knows what thoughts to keep to himself.

He circles his usual route twice before he feels tired enough to go home, and then he parks out in front of the house. Not his usual spot during the night - because god knows what could happen to his baby just sitting all exposed like that rather than tucked away by the house. Tonight, though, he thinks he’d rather have it crashed into or stolen than have Neil accidentally notice the spilled popcorn, the blankets, the musk of sex from the back seat.

 _The blankets. Fuck_. 

Billy glances at the house. He could take them in _now_ , but turning the washer on at this hour is a one-way ticket to a beating, and then Neil will ask why he’s doing it, and there’s no good excuse. He could leave them in his _room_ , but if anyone comes in he’ll have to explain the popcorn and come on them, and there’s really no good cover for that either.

He has to leave them in the trunk. The thought is distasteful, and for a moment he wonders if he could just throw them away. Toss them into the quarry. But he’ll be needing them again, hopefully, and if he just throws away their blankets every time, he’s gonna have to start setting aside a _blanket_ budget.

So no, he has to leave them in the trunk and wait on tenterhooks for the next time Neil and Susan leave the house and he can bring them in and wash them. Billy sighs and makes quick work of the mess, trying to be careful of the wet spots at first but ultimately giving up. He finds both his and Steve’s underwear and tosses them into the trunk as well, covering them with the blankets because if come-stained blankets look a bit questionable, two pairs of men’s underwear looks unquestionably _bad_.

Inside the house, Billy creeps to his room on sock feet, carrying his boots in his hands and stepping carefully to avoid the creaks in the floor. He usually isn’t so cautious about waking people when he comes home late, but on a night like tonight, he doesn’t want to explain where he was. 

He changes into pajama pants in the light from the moon outside his window, wishes for a shower, and falls into the most restful sleep he’s had in roughly a week.

\--

Saturday morning wakes Steve far too early, judging by the light of day. The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day outside of his curtains, and fuck, is that his alarm? Why the hell did he set that? No fucking school, he’s such an idiot. He smacks the alarm clock until it shuts the hell up and drifts off again because the bed is so warm and nice, and he fell asleep like a stone last night after all the… all the fucking around… with Billy…

Suddenly Steve sits up sharply, glances at the clock with a horrified gasp. _10:26 am. Fuck!_

“Shit, fuck, shit,” he curses himself while he jumps out of bed and into his clothes. They’re the same as he wore the previous night, and his hair is going to look a complete mess, _fuck_ , why didn’t he get up when the alarm first went off? 

His parents are blessedly absent while he rages through the house like a hurricane, looking for his keys, looking for his jacket, looking for the detailer’s number to call ahead because he’s not going to fucking go and have them close an hour early because they think it’s a slow day, _fucking hell!_

The drive out to Orwell Street seems to take half a century, and Billy is going to tear him a fucking new one, Steve _knows_ it, and he’ll have earned it, too. That knowledge doesn’t make the deep pit in his stomach go away, though. Fuck, he’s such an idiot! 

He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the Camaro sitting at the saddle of the road a few hundred yards before the detailers’, at least Billy hasn’t given up on him and just left. Steve goes past it, trusts Billy to recognise his car and just come after him. He’s not wrong. Steve grinds the car to a halt and puts on his sunglasses, because, ow, fuck. The direct sunlight is such a bitch. Everything seems to be working against him this morning. 

“Hey Carl,” he greets the man coming out of the garage with a smile and a handshake. “Thanks a lot for squeezing me in, man, you wouldn’t believe the night I had yesterday.” 

“Steve,” the man greets him, looking at the BMW a little wistfully. “I didn’t think we’d see you here again so soon.” 

“No, man, don’t worry, the Beemer is fine,” Steve promises, blushing a little. “Just, my friend’s car, had a bit of an accident at the movies last night. I lost a bet, you know how it goes.” 

He can see Billy coming closer slowly, and crosses over to him. 

“Hey, man,” he says carefully. “Keys?” 

\--

Billy glances over Steve’s shoulder at “Carl” and hands over the keys stiffly. It’s what he’s here for, after all. He can be mad at Steve all he wants, but he needs to have his car cleaned. Now. Otherwise what the hell did he wait here for?

He turns away while Steve hands over the keys to his guy, gets a quote, and a time they should return. Billy pricks up his ears for the dollar amount, but apparently it’s all written down. He lights his third cigarette of the morning and scowls into the distance.

\--

After finishing up with Carl, Steve turns back to Billy, and, ouch. Okay, Billy is mad. It’s glaringly obvious in how still he is, how he won’t meet Steve’s eyes. It reminds Steve painfully of the school’s car parking lot, but, fuck it. It’s his own fault, he’s fucked things up. Hopefully not too badly. 

“Hey,” he says to Billy, quietly. “You coming, man? We got an hour to kill.” He makes a gesture towards his car, slowly starts to walk up to it, and hopes to god Billy is going to follow him.

\--

Billy blows out smoke, glaring after Steve, and lets his gaze trail to that perfect ass as he walks away. He flicks the ash from his cigarette and follows silently.

\--

In the car Steve can barely wait and keep quiet until Billy has closed the passenger side door. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out. “I overslept, I didn’t mean to, I’m really sorry, ba— Billy.” 

He winces at his own stupidity, at the near slip-up, even though they are completely alone, out of earshot, and there aren’t likely any lip-readers in their vicinity. Steve runs a hand through his mess of a hair and groans. 

\--

Billy hates the nervousness in Steve’s voice. Like he thinks he might be about to get hit. Hates that if he followed the thrum in his fingers Steve wouldn’t be wrong. He takes a deep drag from the cigarette and shrugs.

“It’s fine,” he mutters. “Let’s just get out of here. I’m tired of staring at this stretch of road.”

\--

It’s decidedly not fine. Steve can tell from the quiet, flat tone of Billy’s voice. He wants to say something, to tell Billy again that he is sorry, but what difference is the 4th or the 25th time going to make if Billy isn’t in a forgiving mood? 

“Alright,” he says, voice breaking on something, and starts the car, peels out of the lot and towards the direction of that hamburger stand they had talked about, last night, years ago. Fuck. Billy probably doesn’t want to eat now. Steve could murder a whole pig on toast if someone offered, but he doesn’t even know if that place does any breakfast. Has Billy had breakfast? Fuck, he probably got up at some ungodly hour to eat breakfast and then meet Steve _on time_. Shit. 

Steve can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound beyond stupid while they drive, and Billy doesn’t seem keen to start a conversation. He pulls over near the little fast food hut and turns to Billy. 

“I’m gonna go and get something, do you want anything? We could probably eat outside, if you want, it’s nice enough, isn’t it? There are some benches over there—” He points at the incredibly obvious picnic area, and winces at the way everything out of his mouth sounds horrifically dumb. Christ. No wonder Billy thinks he’s an idiot. 

\-- 

Billy shakes his head.

“You go ahead. I’m not hungry.” He glances over at Steve through his hair and puts a hand on his knee for a half-second. “It’s fine, really,” he tries to reassure because he hates affecting Steve in this way. But it’s hard with his voice low and toneless like it is. Like his body’s decided without his permission that they’re going to be angry until they hit something, and not a moment before. 

“I’m just tired. I woke up too early, and my old man wants me back to help Susan start a garden or some shit. It’s not you, Harrington. Just go get yourself some breakfast.”

\--

Okay, Steve knows that Billy calling him Harrington means nothing, he does that all the time, even when they’re screwing around, but still. It feels deliberate now, like he could have called Steve any number of things, baby, sweetheart, pretty boy… and didn’t want to. 

Steve nods slowly and gets out, trying to think of what to order for breakfast, when his stomach feels like he swallowed a rock somehow. Billy is still angry, he can tell, and what else is he gonna do but apologize? What else can he do to make it better? 

His first impulse is to buy him something, but if he gets Billy food he doesn’t even know Billy likes, after he specifically told Steve not to… no. Maybe better to get big portions for himself. That way he can share with Billy if Billy wants to. He’d share the whole fucking thing if Billy wanted to. 

He doesn’t even really pay attention to what he’s ordering and before long makes his way back to the car, arms full of food on a flimsy tray. Gets the door with difficulty. Billy is leaning against the window, staring out of it. Steve doesn’t feel hungry at all anymore. 

\--

The smell of the food makes Billy’s stomach rumble. ‘Cause okay maybe he was lying through his teeth when he said he wasn’t hungry. How could he not be? He’s been waiting in the cold for almost an hour, and breakfast was just enough to fuel his post-workout needs. 

When he glances over and sees how full Steve’s tray is beside him he feels a little warmth in his chest because that is _definitely_ more food than he normally eats and Steve is being good enough to at least pretend he thinks he’s that hungry, like he didn’t buy half of this stuff for Billy to steal.

Billy really wants to kiss him. Really wants to go hit a punching bag and get rid of the restless energy that’s making really accepting Steve’s apology almost impossible. Instead, he sucks the rest of his cigarette down like a drowning man clinging to a tether, and stamps it out in the Beemer’s ashtray.

\--

Steve starts to eat, and it’s really a chore now, chewing through this food that could easily be made of cardboard, he wouldn’t know the difference. He swallows, reaches for the radio and then stops mid-air, because one thing he knows won’t help Billy’s mood at all, is having to listen to music he doesn’t like. And there’s no need to make things worse now. 

“Hey, um,” he says, looking down at his tray, surprised at the amount of stuff he managed to buy. _Hash browns?_ He doesn’t even remember ordering those. 

“Do you maybe wanna help me with some of this?” he offers cautiously. “I guess I got a bit too much… and I’m not really feeling that hungry anymore, you know.” 

\--

Billy rolls his eyes, but his face has loosened up enough now that it doesn’t _feel_ like it looks too judgemental or harsh. He hopes it doesn’t.

“Smooth, Harrington,” he says with soft sarcasm. He glances over the food. It really does look good, even if most of it is stuff he’ll hate himself for eating later. He picks up a piece of bacon and bites into it, glancing up at Steve. 

“You know you shouldn’t have so many carbs this early,” he points out maybe just a little bit to be difficult, and maybe also a bit because he cares about Steve’s well-being now. He shouldn’t, they’re only fucking around, they’re only _boyfriends…_ But maybe that makes it his business.

—

“Right, I really shouldn’t,” Steve agrees, hoping that Billy just won’t notice he doesn’t have a clue what carbs are. Billy is eating though, so that feels like a win. Maybe he’s slowly getting back to normal. Steve wishes he had bought more stuff, because Billy is only nibbling at some of the bacon so far, but it’s better than nothing. 

“Maybe if I lay off the carbs I’ll sleep better,” he says, mouth full, his appetite slowly returning. He really hopes carbs isn’t another word for french fries, because those are fucking delicious. He got the regular and the curly kind, it seems. Billy doesn’t seem interested, so Steve starts making a dent in both. 

\--

Billy glances pointedly at the fries in Steve’s hand and his mouth and can’t help but laugh.

“See you out on the streets then, I guess, huh pretty boy?” He plucks a fry from the sleeve in Steve’s hand and takes a bite. Almost groans because _god_ , he’s missed that. He takes another one and shakes his head, forcing himself to stop there and move back to the bacon. He spots a fried egg sandwich and gestures to it questioningly. Grabs it when Steve nods that he’s welcome to it and takes a bite. It’s definitely too greasy, and the egg is overcooked, but Billy loves it anyway.

After a few bites he gets an idea and glances around the car, chewing.

“D’you have music in here somewhere?” he asks, putting the sandwich down and wiping his hands with purpose on one of about 70 napkins Steve brought with the food.

\--

“Yeah, there’s some stuff in the glove box,” Steve points at it with a french fry, and shit, he’s feeling hopeful. Billy being interested in music has got to be a good sign.

\--

Billy pops open the compartment and ducks his head to glance inside. It’s a chaos of hastily stashed tapes, clearly without any kind of order, so he reaches in and pulls out a couple handfuls and clumsily piles them into his lap.

He’d half expected disgustingly saccharine pop shit, and he’s not entirely wrong (Modern English, Hall & Oates, fucking _Air Supply_ ), but there’s some decent stuff in here too. The Romantics aren’t all bad, and Queen is actually pretty good most of the time, although Billy won’t usually admit to how much he likes them - realizing a lot of it is probably to do with Freddie Mercury’s sex appeal and his own weakness for brunettes. 

“God, you really didn’t know you liked cock until I came around? You sure about that, Harrington?” he doubts tauntingly, holding up cassettes he remembers listening to on repeat at the clubs he used to frequent back in California. “Depeche Mode, Bee Gees, ABBA… Let me guess, you’ve also got…” he digs around for a second and grins when he finds it. “Barbra Streisand. Baby, you might be gayer than I am.”

\--

“Yeah, that’s actually my mom’s,” Steve protests weakly, but, well. Billy is smiling at him. He’d gladly sell all his taste in music (which is fucking awesome, thanks for asking) for that. 

“Like you don’t have any tapes you’d never own up to,” he mumbles into a sandwich. Well, no, Billy is that passionate about his music, he’d probably rather cut off his hand. Unless it’s Toto. 

\--

Billy returns to flicking through the tapes with one hand, the other going to Steve’s knee again, this time for a moment longer. Puts down the Foreigner he was about to put on - probably the band in this pile he’d be most likely to listen to on his own time if it weren’t for the fact he listened to them too much when he was younger - and picks out that Queen tape he saw before. _The Works_. He pushes it into the deck and turns the volume up a bit.

“All we hear is, Radio Ga Ga,” he half-sings preemptively, as the intro plays out through the speakers. He picks up his sandwich and bites into it again to stop his smile. “You don’t have the worst taste in the world, pretty boy,” he reassures even as he glances back at the Bob Seger and Trooper tapes on the top of the pile in his lap with distaste. “You might need a little updating. But the gay shit can stay.” He gives Steve a wink.

\--

“Thank you so much, asshole,” Steve rolls his eyes, but he can’t help a smile. Billy winked at him. That makes his stomach go all funny, and he doesn’t think it’s the fries, or the burger, or the hashbrowns. It’s just the way he can’t handle even looking at Billy sometimes without turning into a 13-year-old girl. 

He drops a napkin into Billy’s foot space. “Oh, hey. Let me get that.” 

Bending down for a moment, he presses a kiss to Billy’s knee cap through the thick denim of his pants, and smiles up at him before sitting back up properly. 

\--

Billy smirks and glances around them a little nervously, but nobody’s watching.

He takes the napkin from Steve’s hand and lets his hand linger around Steve’s longer, softer, prettier one for a moment before he wipes his lips with it then hands it back.

\--

The way Billy’s smirk makes him do the stupidest things… It’s really not his own fault. No jury in the world could convict him for that, Steve decides as he takes the napkin from Billy’s hand and slowly, demonstratively, stuffs it into his pants. God. Something has really messed with his mind. Probably all the carbs. 

\--

Billy shakes his head slowly, his eyes on where that napkin - where those fingers, if only for a moment - disappeared into Steve’s jeans. He keeps his gaze fixed on it until he can _see_ Steve’s cock twitch just a little with stirring interest. Keeping himself on his side of the car is so hard. He’s known insatiable before, but with Steve it’s a whole different ball game. 

“If I could right now, Harrington, fuck…” he almost whispers. Because out here in the open during the day it feels like they’re in a spotlight.

\--

“I know,” Steve sighs, because he _does_. If they could, right now, he’d already have his hand shoved down Billy’s jeans. Maybe they’d no longer be wearing jeans. Maybe Billy would already be bending down, hot breath on his dick while he does that thing only he can do, where he takes Steve’s cock all the way in. _All the way._ Steve shifts his leg a little and sighs. 

“Bill,” he says, and, okay, maybe it’s not entirely fair to bring it up right now, hot on the heels of all this sex stuff, but he needs to set his mind at ease. He looks at Billy carefully, hopes he looks as contrite as he feels. “You’re not mad at me anymore, are you? About being late?” 

\--

Billy groans and itches to reach over and pull Steve’s pouting lips to his. To _show_ him how forgiven he is. But instead he settles for pulling the stone pendant out from under his thermal and fingering it thoughtfully as he shakes his head.

“I’m not mad, _sweetheart_ ,” he says. Realizing only as he says it that that sounded much more affectionate than the playful taunting he’d been aiming for. “You’ve made it worth the wait just by showin’ up.”

\--

Steve can’t help a smile. He feels so relieved it’s ridiculous. He takes the soda he got along with the food and takes a long sip. “Alright,” he says at length, and he can’t even look at Billy then, because looking at him would mean wanting to climb into his lap and kiss him. 

He takes a deep breath. “Do you still like it? The pendant, I mean. Even in daylight?” 

\--

Billy holds the warm stone in his fingers tightly and lets his lips curl up at the corners.

“I think it’s better when I’ve got nothing else on,” he confesses. “But it’s pretty alright this way too.”

\--

“You think _everything_ is better when you’ve got nothing else on,” Steve points out, and smiles down into his hashbrowns. He doesn’t add that he quite agrees with Billy on that. He doesn’t need to hear that _all_ the time. 

“I bet when you’re out digging that garden today, you’re not even gonna bother with a shirt,” he muses, picking at the second egg sandwich, though with no real intention of eating it. “Would be a waste of a good opportunity to show the world how much you’ve worked out and all.”

\--

Billy shakes his head.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you,” he says affectionately. “Too bad _somebody_ left a mark last night that I’d rather not have to attribute to some cow from school.” 

He pulls his collar down a little to show off the dark, angry bruise from Steve’s lips on his collarbone.

\--

Steve whistles through his teeth and grins. “Shit.” His fingers itch to reach out and touch it, but he manages to restrain himself, barely. It feels odd knowing that he put it there, he almost feels a fierce sort of pride at it, knowing people might see it, and have no idea it was him who did that, his mouth on Billy’s neck. 

“I guess somebody got a little too into it last night,” he says, ducking his head a bit, because he isn’t quite sure if Billy hates it or not. Nancy used to Hate it, capital H.

\--

Billy smirks and covers the mark again, but leaves the pendant out on top of his shirt.

“Mm think I might have to get payback next time,” he says, eyeing Steve up and down like he’s analysing his body for the best possible placement of his payback hickey, because he totally is. He thinks about his collarbones, his hips, his thighs. Grins. “And next time might have to be real fuckin’ soon.”

\--

Steve feels his ears start to warm a little. He breaks eye contact because dammit, the way Billy looks at him does something to Steve. Like make his pants just a bit uncomfortably tight. He looks down, adjusts himself briefly, but he doesn’t dare look up again. 

“How soon, exactly?” he mutters, half-praying that the answer will be _“in the next ten minutes or so_ ,” even though he _knows_ it won’t be.

\--

“Can you get your folks out of the house for a night this week?” Billy asks, clutching at straws but really _hoping_. 

\--

“How am I gonna do that?” Steve asks, genuinely wondering if Billy has some kind of genius master plan. He wouldn’t put it past him. His boyfriend’s got smarts in spades. 

\--

“I dunno, Steve, you’re the one with the party house,” Billy almost whines. “How would I know?”

\--

“Oh,” Steve shakes his head, frowns. “I thought you had something. Like, I don’t know, a big parent-teacher thing, or a surprise invitation to see some white tiger show in Vegas.” 

He wonders if he could afford those tiger tickets without having to resort to his mother’s credit card. She could be a bit thoughtless sometimes, but she’d probably notice something like that. 

“I’ve been nagging my mom about when the next big conference is taking them out of town, but I think she’s starting to suspect I want her out of there,” he says, picking at his napkin, tearing it to little bits. “If you have any great ideas to make it look like a coincidence, have at it.”

\--

Billy sighs. “Okay,” he says. “We’ll think on it over the weekend. Fuck, you’d think at least one of us would be good at this.”

\--

Steve wants to say, _I thought you would be_, but it sounds whiny in his own head, so he just shrugs. 

“How did you do it before? With all your million other secret boyfriends?” 

Jeez. That didn’t come out right. He sounds like one of his old girlfriends, nagging about Laurie, Amy, Becky. But alright, maybe he doesn’t have a clue about this sneaking around thing. It never _really_ mattered before, if you got caught or not. The worst you could do was get her grounded. Now he doesn’t even know what the worst _is_ , but from how Billy freaks out over it, it seems way worse. 

\--

Billy throws a glance at Steve, feels cold suddenly, looks away and sets his jaw.

“I didn’t,” he says, watching the cars go by on the road. “There’s not a lot of sneaking around required when you only meet a person once or twice.”

\--

“Oh.” 

Steve tries to wrap his head around that one, but it’s hard. Okay, Billy is a bit of a flirt. A lot of a flirt. A big fucking flirting one-man danger zone. But he’s sweet too, and soft, even if you only get that out of him after spending some time and with the help of something heavy, like a crowbar or something. Why wouldn’t anyone have stuck around for that before? It seems ridiculous. Then he thinks of himself and Nancy, a year spent thinking what they had was _real_ , and would last forever, and then finding out he was wrong. Maybe Billy’s way is actually the smart one. 

\--

The way the silence lingers Billy gets the impression Steve is waiting for more, but even now Billy doesn’t feel particularly in the giving mood. Especially after the comment on his _million other boyfriends_ , which shouldn’t smart but does. For its inaccuracy (they were never _boyfriends_ ) and its accuracy (somewhere upwards of 15 it does start to feel like a million).

“We should probably get back, right? It’s been an hour…” He nods toward the dashboard clock, and finishes off the rest of the now cold sandwich in his hand.

\--

“Alright,” Steve agrees, though when he gets out to dump the rest of the cold food in the trash and return the tray, he finds that he doesn’t agree, at all. He really doesn’t want to go and drop off Billy at the dealership yet, not like this. They’ll have no more chance to talk, they’ll not talk all the rest of the weekend, Billy won’t call, and Steve won’t call him, either. And it will be a miserable and dreadful time, and then it’ll be fucking Monday. _No_. He can’t deal with shit being like that now. 

He gets back in the car, but doesn’t start the engine. What can he do to get the mood back to where it was before? 

“Hey.” He clears his throat. “Do you have a smoke?” 

\--

“Steve,” Billy sighs, glancing at the clock again. “I really gotta--”

\--

“Yeah, okay, I get it,” Steve says, holding his hands up in defeat. “I can smoke and drive. A man of many talents, me.” 

The weekend’s probably a wash. Maybe he can call Dustin and see what he’s up to. Maybe there are monsters to kill or something. Right now that sounds way better than sitting around waiting for the phone never to ring. 

He starts the car and heads out into the road.

\--

Billy frowns, but doesn’t bother responding to that except for to pull a cigarette and lighter out of his pocket. If he was a more patient man he might explain to Steve that this isn’t about him, that he’d spend all _day_ with the fucker at this point, but that he _cannot_ get on his father’s bad side now. Not only for his own good, but for Steve’s as well. If he gives Neil any reason to suspect him, and Neil finds out who he’s been spending his time with…

He lights the cigarette between his own lips, takes a puff, and hands it over to Steve.

“Fuck you,” he says as Steve takes it from him without looking. Because he’s not patient. He’s fucking annoyed that things have to be this way, and even more annoyed that Steve doesn’t get that at all. 

“You seriously think this is about you, don’t you? That I, what, took you out on a fucking _date_ last night, but at the thought of actually hanging out I’m running away? Why the hell would I bother taking you to the movies in fucking _Bomont_ if that was the fucking case, Harrington? Hm?”

They pull into the parking lot for the detailers, and Billy glares through the window, unbuckling his seatbelt before they’re fully stopped.

\--

“Billy, wait--” Steve tries to stop him before he gets out, but Billy either doesn’t hear him, or doesn’t want to. He’s out of the car and walking towards the Camaro, which stands gleaming in the sunlight. 

“Fuck,” Steve mutters, and puts the car in park. He wants to tell Billy that he wasn’t thinking that _at all_ , but now they won’t even get to say goodbye properly. Billy’s probably just going to drive off without a word. It feels like what Billy said before, that he wasn’t mad at Steve for the wait anymore, was just bullshit. He is still mad, mad as a hornet, and he’s punishing Steve for it. By now, Steve almost wishes Billy would just take another swing at him and be done with it. At least that he _knows_ he can take. 

He gets out and leaves Billy with the car to go into the office to settle accounts. It’s easier with his sunglasses back on. He thanks Carl for the speedy service, exchanges a joke with him about popcorn and floor mats, leaves a generous tip in the jar, probably too generous, but what the hell. He takes the car keys and walks out to Billy. 

“Here. Heads up.” OK, he didn’t _have_ to throw the keys, maybe. But he doesn’t feel like getting too close now. 

\--

Billy snatches his keys from the air before they land and scratch his paint job, and rolls his eyes. Pulls the freshly cleaned Calvins from his pocket and tosses the small roll of fabric back at Steve. From the quizzical look on his face as he catches them with both hands, Steve has no idea what Billy’s giving him. Will probably unfold the tight roll in the middle of the parking lot, if he doesn’t read the label in time.

“See you at school, _King Steve_ ,” Billy says, and he’s shocked and a little sickened by how easily his voice slips back into that distant mocking tone he used with Steve back when his ass was a pipedream and the outline of his dick in those gym shorts was the stuff Billy’d beat off to shamefully every other night. Back before he meant something.

He ducks into the car and slams the door shut. He’s speeding out of the parking lot before Steve moves an inch.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone is interested, there are mood-board things for each of the fics in this series up on Theo’s tumblr [here](http://women-seem-wicked.tumblr.com/post/171478593956/what-about-today), great for reblogging and sharing with your friends ;)


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